etrayamemes | TDM 001

⏵ arrival⏴
Arrival goes as anticipated. Characters awaken in the pristine, new hospital, greeted by Aurora and potentially getting a rundown of what's happening depending on their approach to being dropped somewhere new. The door to their room opens, and new arrivals are left free to explore their new environment.

Or what exists of it anyway. Exiting the hospital will show that there isn't much of anything just yet. Generally, Echo can build new facilities before new arrivals awaken, but it appears that this time… well, it didn't happen. The apartment complex exists, standing just beside the hospital, and there are a few facilities that are half constructed, companion bots carrying around rebar and other necessary bits and pieces, but they're not quite ready. Oops. But maybe, just maybe, one of those half-built facilities is familiar - a childhood home, a favorite supermarket, the run-down garage they worked at as a youth, a grounded spaceship in the middle of one of the massive bridges connecting land over rivers.

The companion bots will offer quiet apologies if approached; they were expecting new arrivals to touch down, but not quite this early. They'll be ready soon! A few more days at most, they promise. In the meantime, do not stray too far from the hospital. While most of Etraya looks habitable, they have not finished verifying that it's safe for its new inhabitants.

The apartment building and hospital are safe, and the land directly around them is fine, but beyond that? Stay away. But hey, the hospital's cafeteria is fully stocked with cuisine from across the multiverse! Please feel free to settle in, choose an apartment, and get to know your new friends.

⏵ water you doing?⏴
Decide not to listen? Well, the companion bots had offered their warnings.

Etraya is a new establishment, one that received newcomers before it was ready. And as such, the land has not quite been prepared for their arrival. Wandering off the land the apartment building and hospital are settled on comes with very, very poor results. Take a step down into the river below, and you'll find yourself uncomfortably hot. Or cold. Or hot and cold, because whatever that 'water' is, it wasn't meant to be played in. The only way to resolve the temperature regulation issue, as Aurora informs, is finding a buddy to cuddle up with. Those who are lucky may have a nearby friend they're familiar with and don't mind leaning a shoulder against. Those that don't? Well. . . have fun having a very uncomfortable conversation with a stranger, asking them if it's alright if you lean into them or hold their hand for a bit. Any physical contact will do, as long as it's directly skin-to-skin.

Except that's not where the contact stops. Characters will find that, for the next several hours, they'll feel everything that their companion feels. Frustration, anger, amusement, homesickness that comes from being so far away from their families and friends - all those feelings? They're not your feelings, they're our feelings now.

No explanation is given for how the empathy bond and the temperature regulation are related, but it may have to do with how since they had decided not to listen, it was time to test how well they could cohabitate with their new friends.

⏵ bonding bingo ⏴

Maybe it feels a little too much like Obi-Wan had when receiving Leia's message, but all new arrivals are their universe's only hope. Except they're not the only ones arriving, and not the only ones who are trying to keep their worlds safe. Instead, they've arrived with several others who carry the same weight on their shoulders. And they aren't meant to go through this alone. The people they've arrived with are both their new companions and their competition. Both comrades to fight beside and enemies to battle against, depending on what the specific mission of the month is. But currently?

They're here to bond. It's important to get to know those who they'll be spending the next unspecified but lengthy amount of time with, isn't it? To that extent, Aurora's hologram waits just inside the hospital's front doors, offering bonding bingo cards to those willing to participate. It's not necessary, but she does specify that this is one way to get ahead: cooperation is important, especially given what they're going to face together. Bingo cards are three long and three across, and offer a multitude of activities you can do to check each box off.

Some examples include:

Learn someone's biggest secret

Get into a fight

Tell someone something that you've never admitted out loud to

Throw a drink on someone

Win a game of pool in the apartment building's recreation room

Cheat on a card game without getting caught

Hug a new friend

Get stabbed

Steal something important to someone

Pull off an elaborate prank on a stranger

⏵ matchmaker ⏴

When the earpiece is put on, a nice green HUD(head-up display) lights up in front of new arrivals. It asks them for their name, which is fairly standard for these.

Except it seems it wants them to put together a profile to help pair them off with other new arrivals. For some, this information may autofill with what Aurora was able to discern about them from watching them in their home worlds. But some lucky individuals may catch their profiles before they're posted live, and have the opportunity to edit out information included in fields, even if they're not able to clear it out entirely.

Welcome to Aurora's idea of matchmaking. Have fun getting paired off with a buddy or four, with your profiles exchanged between one another. Maybe they're the perfect match. Maybe this is a nightmare in the making.

⏵ OOC ⏴
Welcome to our first TDM! We're excited to have you here. For more information on character arrivals, click here. For any questions relating to the TDM please reply below. All other questions can be directed to the FAQ.

⏵FULL NAVIGATION⏴

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

( the relief is immediate. everywhere they touch, it's neither too cold nor too warm, but just right and sylvie can almost forget about the rest of her body, burning, since her hands are fine, the lower parts of her arms, a little bit in her upper arms as well. the rest, it burns a little still, but this means there's a way to fix it! there's a cure!

completely without stopping to think, sylvie releases both rita's hands and without considering her question much, she unceremoniously steps forward and embraces the other girl, full front to front.

the heat dies down right away. like a cooling balm. she sighs contentedly, arms wrapped around rita's waist, her chin resting on her shoulder. )

We can figure it out when we're not so uncomfortable anymore, right?

[There's relief in the warmth gradually spreading up her arms, but now that the cold is fading... It's just as she's starting to get a little embarrassed, wondering how long they'll have to hold hands, that Sylvie comes in for a tight embrace, and suddenly-

Rita squeaks, and suddenly everything is very warm, and it's not just whatever strange power is causing their temperature problem--there's a very red flush covering her face, and she stiffens up a little- (not that the hug is bad or anything, it's just--you know--a sudden hug!)]

S--Sylvie... Uh... I guess, but... How long...?

Just for now.

( that's not really an answer, she knows. "for now" can mean a moment or it can mean, dares she think it, forever. that feeling of being close to someone makes her feel so happy, so safe, and she tightens her grip a little bit, though careful not to overdo it and hurt the other girl.

when she carries on, it's a mumble into the fabric of rita's striped pajamas and the material scratches her chin, but it's warm, comfortably so and although she can't see much of rita's embarrassment... she feels it. strangely enough, she really feels it, that urge to pull away and apologise and hide that she knows so well. she swallows, says, )

Don't be embarrassed, please. I didn't mean to make it awkward for you. It's just comfort.

[She says don't be embarrassed, but that just make her blush bloom hotter.]

You say that...

[She almost says but...but what? Sylvie's been maintaining a cheerful, sweet face, yet Rita recalls that hint earlier of the worry for her home that must be underneath.

...Maybe it can just be comfort.

Gingerly, she places her hands on Sylvie's shoulders, not to push her away, but in an awkward return hug.]

Alright, you can just...let me know. When you feel better, okay?

Will you wait for me to be ready?

( sorry i'm such a bother, it means, as much as it means, please wait for me regardless. she feels sad all of a sudden, knowing she could never truly ask these questions with charles either, it's armand who has given her the confidence and he isn't here. she closes her eyes and presses her forehead to rita's shoulder, her own shoulders slumping slightly. oh, horsefeathers! what horsefeathers. even as she doesn't want to, as she wants to keep close and not be alone, sylvie begins drawing back slightly, looking at rita sideways. )

You can say no. Someone told me once, everyone disappears, by now I have practice.

[The sudden well of sadness--the fact it fills her even before Sylvie says said is something Rita doesn't understand. But it's hard to spend the time thinking and wondering where such emotions are coming from when the sadness--a loneliness, a really, and edged with regret and so many other things--only grows in response to Sylvie's words.

Everyone does disappear, sooner or later, but knowing it doesn't make it any less painful when it happens.]

No--it's okay. [Swallowing a lump in her throat, she shakes her head and meet's the other girl's look.] I'll wait. I'm not...disappearing anytime soon, if I have any say.

( rita promises. she promises. and sylvie's eyes well with tears, because she hasn't been given many promises in her life, not in words, hardly even in action. she has been cared for, and cared for well, but she has never been given the promise of any of it getting better, safer, closer... smiling through the tears that blur her vision, she hugs the other girl close once before stepping back, a feeling of weak hope overtaking the rest. maybe it will really be different here, in this place, this strange and wondrous place with technology she doesn't understand and people from worlds she's never heard about before.

the heat returns as soon as they don't touch anymore, which seems to be the way it is now. but she waits for rita to decide what to do with that, it was her promise after all. her decision. )

Thank you. I'll be here when you need me, too!

[The sight of those tears tugs something fierce at her chest--although speechless, she pats Sylvie's back when they hug. It's a good thing she's not one to make promises lightly, because it's clearly meant a lot to Sylvie--and she has every intention of doing what she can to keep it.]

Th...thanks.

[A faint blush remains on her cheeks, though an appreciative smile tugs at the corner of her mouth, even as the chill returns. But that's what friends do: they're there when needed. So she extends a hand towards Sylvie, an invitation for her to take it.]

Come on, you--I mean, we still need this, don't we? For the temperature.

( at the extended hand, sylvie smiles and takes what is offered her. gratefully. clasping rita's hand in both hers, she shuffles a little closer, not hugging distance, but close enough to feel the heat they both generate now. it's more comfortable than her own inner warmth, her own inner cold, the unregulated spikes of either one.

this feels nice. )

For the temperature.

( and for the company, she thinks. )

TDM 001

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